Позитивные изменения. Том 2, № 3 (2022). Positive changes. Volume 2, Issue 3 (2022)
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Давайте порассуждаем о комплексной оценке, которой подвергается проект/организация, когда подается на различные конкурсы и программы поддержки.
У каждого конкурса и программы своя специфика, но есть много общих принципов и параметров оценки: вопросы, связанные с проблемой и эффективностью решения, оценка результатов для благополучателей (хоть она очень по-разному и проводится), (со)финансирование грантового проекта и продолжение его работы без гранта, оценка потенциала лидера проекта и команда, репутационные
Грубо говоря, ключевым отличием оценки проектов, подающихся на программу поддержки социальных (импакт) предпринимателей, является детализация и глубина, с которой организаторы обращают внимание на финансовую устойчивость, или, в некоторых случаях, на доходность и инвестиционную привлекательность проекта.
Если речь идет о стартапе на стадии идеи или прототипа, оценивают потенциал финансовой устойчивости. Он всегда зависит от рынка, ценности и востребованности продукта, от личных и профессиональных качеств основателя проекта и его команды.
Некоторые программы, в том числе и наш конкурс и Инкубатор, снабжают социальные стартапы инструментами и поддержкой, которые позволяют им, как говорится, под наблюдением специалистов протестировать гипотезы, как по социальному воздействию, так и по бизнес-модели. Шансы на получение дополнительной поддержки в таких конкурсах и программах у проектов, которые наилучшим образом поддерживают баланс между глубиной социального воздействия и финансовой устойчивостью, выше.
Where Do Social Entrepreneurs Come From and How Do They Grow? Experience of the Reach for Change Foundation's Incubator for Impact Startups
Sofiya Shaginyan
DOI 10.55140/2782–5817–2022–2–3–13–17
The word «incubator» in the business community has long ceased to be associated with agriculture, becoming a tool for developing a start-up entrepreneurial project (or even just an idea), allowing it to grow into a sustainable project within the space of system-organized expert assistance. Social enterprises are not left out either. What benefits they get from participating in the incubators, what features the incubator program has to offer social impact projects?
Sofiya Shaginyan
Program manager, Reach for Change
The Reach for Change Foundation’s Incubator program is designed for projects at the early development stage. It is attended by 12 to 22 participants each year. We distinguish two groups of stakeholders in assessing social impact. The first group includes the impact projects, the second one is children and young people who are the beneficiaries of the impact projects [4] .
4
Since 2012, Reach for Change has been helping develop projects by social (impact) entrepreneurs, which are aimed at improving the quality of life of children and youth throughout Russia.
For impact projects, the short-term social impact goal is to strengthen their organizational capacity, and the long-term goal is ensuring survivability and scalability.
For children and youth, short- and long-term goals for improvement of their lives are defined by what is known as the “Theory of Change” of impact projects. With this approach, the participants construct hypotheses for change in children’s lives, attach indicators and metrics, and devise data collection tools and plans.
The program participants provide data on the number of children and cases of changes in children’s lives three times a year, and social impact assessment data at the end of the first or in some cases second year of the project.
We track the development of the organizational capacity of impact projects using a tool called the Development Tracker.
The Tracker measures development in five areas:
• social impact;
• financial sustainability;
• leadership and team;
• social impact scaling;
• systemic changes.
Each sphere has its own subgoals. At the beginning of the year, the participants together with the program manager record the baseline status and define development targets for each subgoal. The status is updated throughout the year based on actual performance.
To track the development of organizational capacity, the Foundation also collects certain quantitative indicators from participants and analyzes their growth and multiplicity. Besides the number of children, these indicators include the number of staff and volunteers, financial performance, and project coverage.
The dynamics of project development, measured through quantitative indicators, vary from year to year, but based on data from previous years, we can say that the number of children receiving support traditionally at least doubles every year (for projects that were past the idea or prototype stage when joining the program).
To track project survival and scalability, we survey the alumni of the Incubator program every two years. And to isolate the Foundation’s contribution, we ask participants to separately assess our program’s impact on their development.
Here is a short listing of the assessment tools used by the Foundation:
• Development Tracker;
• Special reporting forms and surveys;
• Social impact cases;
• Internal research;
• Interviews with impact entrepreneurs, mentors, and other stakeholders;
• Program alumni surveys, a biennial survey of all alumni from different years.
To learn more about the social impact assessment system and program results, check our annual report [5] .
5
Social Impact Report 2020–2021. Retrieved from:(accessed: 27.09.2022). (In Russian).